checking-deploy-timing

Checking when something was deployed

PostHog's CI writes a deploy marker into the project as an annotation every time a commit ships to an environment. These annotations are hidden_in_user_interface: true, so they don't show in the UI and are easy to forget — but they are the source of truth for "when did this go out". Always check them when staff ask about deploy timing, rather than inferring from when a metric or event volume changed (that conflates a capture change with a query/code change).

The deploy annotations

List them with posthog:annotations-list using {"search": "deploy"}. Each deploy marker looks like:

• content: Deployed PostHog/posthog@<sha> to <env> — env is prod-us, prod-eu, or dev
• creation_type: GIT
• scope: organization
• hidden_in_user_interface: true
• date_marker: the deploy time (UTC)

They're returned newest-first; paginate with offset if you need to go further back.

Workflow

1. Find the change's merge commit. Identify the PR (e.g. gh search prs --repo PostHog/posthog --author <user> "<keywords>"), then gh pr view <n> --repo PostHog/posthog --json number,title,mergedAt,mergeCommit,state. Note the merge commit SHA and mergedAt.

2. List the target environment's deploys around the merge, oldest-first. Match the region the user asked about (prod-us for "the US", prod-eu for "the EU"). The annotations come back newest-first, so don't just take the first ... to <env> match on page 1 — that's the most recent deploy. Paginate (with offset) until you reach markers around mergedAt, then consider that environment's deploys in chronological order, starting with the first whose date_marker is after mergedAt. Check them earliest-first in step 3.

3. Confirm the deployed commit actually contains the merge commit. A later date_marker is necessary but not sufficient — a deploy can fire just after the merge yet build a slightly older commit. Verify ancestry:

   gh api repos/PostHog/posthog/compare/<merge_sha>...<deployed_sha> --jq '{status,ahead_by,behind_by}'
   

   behind_by: 0 with status ahead or identical means the deployed commit includes the merge — that's your answer. If behind_by > 0, this deploy predates the change; move to the next newer deploy of that environment (the next one chronologically) and re-check. The first deploy that passes is the one that shipped the change.

4. Report the deploy time (and PR/commit) for the region asked about. Mention other regions if relevant — prod-us and prod-eu usually deploy minutes apart but not simultaneously.

Notes

• "Live in the US" = prod-us; "the EU" = prod-eu. dev is the internal staging environment, not customer-facing.
• For a query-runner / read-path change, the new behaviour applies retroactively to all data once deployed — so you can't time it from event volume, only from the deploy annotation. For a capture change, event volume for the new property is a secondary cross-check, but the annotation is still the authoritative deploy time.